site.btaSkopje Mayor Physically Attacked during Check into Illegal Construction in City's Cair Municipality

Skopje Mayor Danela Arsovska was physically attacked at noon on Friday in the city's Cair Municipality. Leaving the hospital where she was examined after the incident, she told journalists that she was in Cair together with staff from the administration of North Macedonia's capital to check an alert by citizens about illegal construction.

Over the past month, Arsovska has regularly posted on Facebook videos and information related to illegal construction works in Cair. She has said in several interviews that she has been receiving threats.

Arsovska also journalists that Friday's check concerned a building which had already been checked once and for which the Interior Ministry had been notified since it had no building permit, no taxes due to the municipality paid, and no permit for its connection to the power grid and sewerage system. 

"The person first threatened me verbally, I can't even say what abusive words he used (...), then he physically attacked me, started kicking me in front of the police officers. They just pushed him aside, stood in front of me and did nothing else, allowing the crowd to shout and attack the people from the Skopje city administration, as well as hit them with chairs and spit at them. This person, who has made so many illegal buildings, called 20 people in high positions in the Ministry of Interior and told them what he was going to do to me, shouting that he was going to kill me, eliminate my family members one by one," Arsovska was quoted as saying by the website SDK.mk.

North Macedonia's Interior Ministry said that two attackers have been detained and are currently being questioned.

In the past weeks, Arsovska, who has already announced that she will not run a second term in office in the local elections this autumn, filed reports with the main prosecution service and with the prosecution service for the fight against organized crime and corruption of North Macedonia about an attempt to legalize illegal buildings, which she linked to Cair Mayor Visar Ganiu.

In one of the videos on her Facebook account, Arsovska presented several cases in which she stated that the documents submitted for building permits were forged and were submitted by persons who were actually minors at the time the permits were allegedly obtained. According to the law in North Macedonia, illegal buildings can only be legalized if built before 2011.

On the VMRO-DPMNE website, the group of municipal councillors reacted with a short message condemning any kind of violence, pressure and threats and demanding that the institutions clean up the case and that the facts be established.

The SDSM also strongly condemned the "attack on officials from the city of Skopje".